Superhero Revival
Shirokiya celebrates 35 years of Japanese superheroes in Hawaii with a festival this Sunday. Here’s the inside scoop from the local guys inside the costumes
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Not every person who’s volunteered to put on the white beard and play Santa at Christmastime is a huge fan of jolly old St. Nick. Billy Bob Thornton was a good example of that in Bad Santa.
The opposite is true, however, for a few local men who year after year wear Kikaida character costumes at fan events for the popular live-action show. These men are not only lifelong Kikaida fans, but they honestly enjoy meeting and greeting other fans, even if it means getting a little sweaty in the process.
Longtime portrayers of the Kikaida characters are Sam Campos, Scott Shinsato and Bert Shibuya. Each has worn the costumes of Kikaida, Kikaida 01, Inazuman, Hakaida or Sanagiman at JN Production’s Kikaida fan events, greeting fans, posing for photos, experiencing firsthand the amazing impact the show has had on the young and old. And they continue to love it.
They’ll be in costume again this Sunday, May 17, at Shirokiya at Ala Moana Center for the 35th anniversary celebration of Kikaida in Hawaii, put on by JN Productions. The fun happens from 1 to 2:30 p.m. and includes “Kikaida-oke,” free drawings to win Generation Kikaida items, new Kikaida merchandise for sale and free photos with the characters, live and in person. And, once again, Shibuya, Campos and Shinsato will transform themselves into their favorite alter egos for the event.
Shibuya, the senior member of the group, has donned the costumes of almost all of the show’s characters since 2002 when JN Productions started hosting fan events in Hawaii and selling the Kikaida DVDs in Island stores. Before he passed away, it was Shibuya’s friend Gaylord Cambra who inspired Joanne Ninomiya, currently of JN Productions and formerly of Hawaii’s KIKUTV, to get Kikaida broadcast on KIKU 35 years ago.
“Every time we have an appearance, we have a moment of silence for him, bringing us all together,” says Shibuya.
Shibuya, who usually wears Kikaida and Inazuman, adds that it’s the smiles and thanks he gets from fans that really make it all worthwhile.
“The kids just come up and say, ‘Thank you, you’re my hero.’
They give you a hug. It’s a good feeling,” he says.
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Speaking of feeling, Shibuya reveals that it can get pretty hot being Kikaida. The Kikaida brothers’costumes are made of fiber-glass, vinyl and rubber. They’re two-piece jumpsuits that come with boots, gloves and a helmet.
“For the vinyl suits like Kikaida, in the indoors in AC it’s OK. When you go outdoors in the sun, then it’s hot,” says Shibuya, whose day job is with the City and County Department of Parks and Recreation. “In some you can’t really talk that well. In breaks, we drink a lot of water.”
When he first started wearing the costumes, he took breaks every 20 minutes to take off the helmet. Pretty soon, 20 minutes turned into 30 and then to 45. “Now we’re so used to it, it’s one hour. Most events are indoors so we go the full hour,” he says.
Other suits, like Inazuman, are made of cloth and are a lot cooler, Shibuya explains, but they do have one drawback: a heavy chest piece that lays right on your chest and leaves the wearer slightly winded.
“The most difficult one was three appearances I had to do within one day in 2003,” he remembers. “We traveled for six hours; we did one in the morning, one in the afternoon, then we went to Tower Records. I was so strained I think I was weaving back and forth.”
Shinsato echoes Shibuya’s sentiments, joking that you almost lose weight while wearing the costumes. “We call it the ‘Kikaida diet’ - you lose five pounds that day. You take off the helmet and you’re dripping sweat,” he laughs.
Not everyone can fit in the costumes, adds Shibuya, explaining that “you can’t be overweight, you have to follow a certain diet sometimes. The original actors in Japan were really thin. It’s amazing how thin they were,” he says.
The costumes are made by a fan in Japan who makes them for his own appearances at Kikaida events and has taught Shibuya, Shinsato and Campos how to play the characters.
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“He’s our teacher. We have to watch the DVDs and learn the mannerisms. When we have new people come in, I tell them, ‘You have to make the public believe that you’re from Japan. You have to walk a certain way.‘You have to plan the persona of the character,” says Shibuya.
Like Shibuya, Shinsato also understands becoming the persona while wearing the costume and enjoys the reactions from fans.
“It’s exciting, especially with the little kids. They’re kind of shy at first, unless you’re one of the main good guys, (but) once their parents get into it they’re OK,” says Shinsato, part-time general manager of the Generation Kikaida store.
“When Ban (Ban Daisuke, star of Kikaida) comes down, you turn into that little kid again,” he adds. “I get to work with him now. He’s actually a really nice, personable kind of guy, he jokes around.
“The thing that kind of amazes me is you see little kids and the show hasn’t been on KIKU for six or seven years. Unless parents are showing DVDs (to their kids), there’s no way they could get into it. We’re getting new fans all the time.”
Campos, a Hawaii native who moved back to Oahu in 2005 after flying back and forth between here and California for his work in the TV and film industry, has been a mainstay with JN Productions’ crew of Kikaida costume-wearers. He says he really credits the stuntmen from the 1970s show for doing what they did while wearing less-than-comfortable suits.
“The vision is really bad in there. These guys, they’re fighting and doing stuff on the ground, and there’s no padding in there. They’re incredible stuntmen in Japan. They’re doing incredible acrobatics and highly choreographed fights,” he says.
Campos is such a devoted fan that he even helped Niomiya with a Kikaida float in the 2008 Kaneohe Christmas Day Parade.
“I called a friend of mine and he let me borrow his flat-bed truck. He had a trailer, and we built this float on the truck and we had all the Kikaida characters on there, Inazuman and Hikaida. On the back we had my character from my TV show that I’m working on now,” says Campos, who owns a production company and is developing a TV show called Dragonfly, inspired by Kikaida.
Bob Furukawa, general manager of JN Productions and coordinator of Sunday’s event, is glad to have Campos, Shinsato and Shibuya on board and shares their feelings of excitement about Kikaida.
“It’s almost not like work sometimes. It’s great, we get paid for doing the thing that we really love.”
Something new at this year’s event, Furukawa says, is the new Kikaida merchandise that will be for sale, including coffee mugs, mouse pads and limited-edition cookies imprinted with a Kikaida design.
For more information about Kikaida, visit www.generationkikaida.com. Shirokiya is located on Mall Level Two at Ala Moana Center, adjacent to Macy’s.
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